September 2024: Top five fintech partnership stories of the month
The global fintech industry delivered a range of compelling partnerships over the month of September. Here, we’ve selected five of the top partnership stories of the month, featuring Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, Parabank, Apple and more.
Crown Agents Bank partners Visa to power cross-border payments in emerging markets
Crown Agents Bank in FX collaboration with Visa
UK-based Crown Agents Bank (CAB) is collaborating with Visa to power cross-border payments for clients in emerging markets, with a particular emphasis on streamlining “last mile” payment processes.
The bank will integrate the real-time payment service Visa Direct in the hope of enabling its customers to “move much lower value payments across emerging markets cost-effectively”.
The service provides reach to more than 8.5 billion endpoints, Visa claims, and can optimise the management of large volumes of small transactions that are common in emerging markets.
“Our combined capabilities and expertise mean we’re able to reduce the cost and friction associated with moving money across hard-to-reach markets,” explains CAB CEO Neeraj Kapur.
BankDhofar partners Entrust to deploy Tap to Pay services in Oman
BankDhofar, a full-service bank based in Oman, has partnered with Entrust to implement its Digital Card Solution (DCS) offering.
The offering will enable Tap to Pay and tokenisation services across all debit and credit operations via the Dhofar-Pay mobile service, allowing users to complete transactions without a physical debit card.
“Once set up, the smartphone becomes a digital card, enabling contactless payment transactions with a simple tap on POS terminals,” BankDhofar explains.
The bank is due to launch a new feature that will allow customers to add their BankDhofar cards directly into digital wallets; a capability its statement promises will arrive “soon”.
Lloyds Bank taps Cleareye.ai to streamline trade finance documentation processing
Lloyds Bank partners Cleareye.ai
Lloyds Bank has partnered with Cleareye.ai, an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) company based in California, to streamline the processing and compliance checking of trade finance documentation for its clients.
The British bank has implemented its partner’s optical character recognition (OCR), ML and natural language processing algorithms to enhance how it extracts data from trade documentation, including import and export documentary letters of credit, documentary collections, undertakings and trade loans.
Lloyds says the technology will “conduct automated examinations of documents – in line with the International Chamber of Commerce Rules for Documentary Credits and Collections – as well as critical compliance checks, including trade-based money laundering (TBML) checks”.
Brazil’s Parabank partners Dock to launch inclusive card programme for people with disabilities
Parabank, a digital challenger seeking to improve financial access for disabled people in Brazil, has partnered with financial technology infrastructure provider Dock to build and launch a new card programme.
The challenger has selected Dock’s private-label card processing platform to offer credit and prepaid debit cards tailored to “the purchasing and payment needs of consumers with a wide range of disabilities”, according to a joint statement.
The cards will enable users to tap into a wide range of benefits, including partnerships with rehabilitation clinics, a marketplace with products and services and access to investment services.
JP Morgan reportedly in talks to replace Goldman Sachs as Apple’s credit card partner
Apple reportedly in talks with JP Morgan over credit cards
JP Morgan Chase is reportedly in talks to replace Goldman Sachs as Apple’s credit card partner, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal citing sources familiar with the matter.
The report claims that discussions between the US bank and the tech giant began earlier this year and have been progressing over recent weeks, but a final agreement could still be months away.
Reports emerged at the end of last year suggesting that Apple had proposed ending its six-year credit card and savings account partnership with Goldman Sachs, according to sources at The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.
Speculation around the future of the partnership between Apple and Goldman Sachs has grown throughout the year as Goldman Sachs continues to migrate away from the retail banking market.
